


say it with your hands

by parcequelle



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Community: femslashex, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-01-24 23:43:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: This brand of intimacy has never come naturally to Kathryn, and after six years of denying herself every impulse for pleasure, every opportunity for companionship, it’s even more of a challenge to let go.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine
Comments: 30
Kudos: 156
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	say it with your hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/gifts).

Seven’s hands are taking a leisurely stroll down the sides of Kathryn’s body, the cool metal a tingling contrast to her own over-warm skin. This brand of intimacy has never come naturally to Kathryn, and after six years of denying herself every impulse for pleasure, every opportunity for companionship, it’s even more of a challenge to let go. If it weren’t for the exploratory, near-clinical way that Seven has approached this new phase of their relationship, and the fact that Kathryn still has her trousers and undershirt on, she might have trouble allowing it all.

She rethinks that sentiment immediately when Seven scrapes a slow, considering fingernail under the sensitive curve of her breast, repeating the motion when Kathryn arches up into her hand.

‘Fascinating,’ Seven murmurs. She brushes her finger across Kathryn’s hardening nipple, her eyes flicking up to Kathryn’s face, cataloguing her reactions, and down again. ‘Your breasts react with great sensitivity to my touch, but I have failed to elicit a similar response when stimulating my own.’

Kathryn swallows a too-large gulp of air that is not quite a laugh, not when the image of Seven touching herself swims before her eyes. ‘Every human is different,’ Kathryn manages, ‘with different desires and different preferences. It’s what makes us unique.’ Seven cups her breast and squeezes; something like a smile crosses her face when Kathryn squirms in response.

Her grey tank top is bunched around her underarms, and Kathryn leans up on her elbows on the bed to wrestle it off and toss it onto the floor. Seven gives it a disapproving look where it lands, but doesn’t protest; Kathryn is smugly pleased that even chaos can’t keep Seven’s gaze from her now-naked torso, and smirks a little when Seven licks her lips. She is just beginning to feel self-conscious about the attention when Seven reaches out, slow and careful, and drags a thumb along her collarbone. Kathryn shivers, her nipples hardening further at the teasing touch, and Seven asks, ‘Do you always experience such sensitivity when touched in this manner?’

‘Not always,’ Kathryn says softly. She presses her hand over Seven’s, slides both of them down to cup her other breast, guides Seven’s hand to knead and squeeze. ‘It depends a lot on my feelings for the person I’m… with.’

Seven watches her own fingers caressing Kathryn’s nipple, pinching and circling, and then she says, ‘I believe I understand.’ She glances up, eyes wide and grown dark with arousal. ‘May I kiss you?’

‘Yes,’ Kathryn says. ‘You know, Seven, I appreciate your care, but you don’t have to ask me every time.’

Seven frowns. ‘It was my understanding that obtaining consent is the most important precursor to intercourse.’

‘It is,’ Kathryn says, ‘but I want you to know that right now, for the duration of this… encounter, at least, you can assume that I will enthusiastically accept your kisses. I’ll let you know if that changes. Acceptable?’

‘Acceptable,’ Seven confirms. She raises an eyebrow. ‘Is it customary to extend the same permission to you?’

‘Only if you want to,’ Kathryn tells her firmly, with effort; Seven is still rolling her hardened nipple between two deft fingers, and it’s getting difficult to concentrate. ‘You are under no obligation to do so—’

‘I wish to do so,’ Seven interrupts, and she’s staring at Kathryn’s lips. Kathryn can’t stop herself from parting them in anticipation. ‘You may kiss me whenever you wish.’

‘What are you waiting for, then?’

‘For you to stop talking,’ Seven says, and Kathryn hasn’t even finished laughing when Seven has moved in to kiss her, both hands tangled up in her hair.

*

Two weeks earlier, Kathryn walked into the mess hall in the early hours of the morning to find Seven, uncharacteristically disquieted, staring out the window at the passing stars. She went to join her without preamble, noting with surprise that she had been drinking chamomile tea, and that it smelled fresh, rather than replicated. Kathryn hadn’t even known she liked tea.

‘What’s bothering you, Seven?’

Seven kept staring out the window, but it was clear she’d heard her. Finally, she said, ‘I fail to comprehend why the ambassador mistook me for your daughter. You are Human; I was Borg. We are dissimilar in both appearance and temperament, and the difference in our ages is insufficient for you to have given birth to me.’

That wasn’t strictly true, but Kathryn let it go. She took a seat in the chair beside her, turned her body to face Seven’s stiff one.

‘I am also a member of your crew, and Starfleet Regulation 39 Alpha prohibits parents, spouses, children, or other immediate family members from serving under a relative.’

‘That’s all true,’ Kathryn said. Seven watched her, searching and expectant, and Kathryn sighed into her ill-advised insomnia coffee. ‘For one thing, you can’t assume that the ambassador of a Delta Quadrant species would be familiar with Starfleet regulations, even if they’d taken the time to read up on us. For another… well. I suppose he must have seen the way we… relate to one another, seen that you are younger than I am, and assumed our familial relations based on his own culture, or on what he had observed of ours.’ She watched Seven closely, drinking in the nuance of her reaction, the way the consideration, uncertainty, distaste, and finally acceptance played through her expressive eyes, her forehead, her mouth. Seven was struggling with something; Kathryn suspected it was something she understood but didn’t know how to express. Softly, curiously, dare-she-think-it hopefully, she asked, ‘Why does it bother you?’

‘I had a mother,’ Seven said. ‘And a father. They failed in their duty as parents when they were assimilated.’

Kathryn frowned. ‘You know they tried to keep you safe, Seven—’

‘They failed. Their efforts are irrelevant.’

Kathryn watched her for a moment and then shook her head, leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. ‘I disagree. Effort is never irrelevant.’

‘Effort is weak.’

‘No,’ Kathryn snapped, ‘effort is _human_. I cherish the efforts made every day by every member of this crew, you among them.’

Seven was studying her, something complex working behind her eyes; not for the first time, Kathryn longed to know what it was, but resisted the urge to push. If she’d learned anything in the last eighteen months, it was that Seven would speak up in her own time.

‘The failure is unimportant when resulting from an effort to succeed,’ Seven said. Her eyes were large and round and lovely, hooked into Kathryn’s own, and Kathryn felt the spread of her own smile – from pride, and delight, and the quick-beating heart she often felt in Seven’s presence and then tried to ignore. 

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You understand.’

‘I continue to strive for perfection,’ Seven said. ‘I must.’

‘I know,’ Kathryn said, softly. She rested her hand atop the one poised on Seven’s knee, moved slowly and carefully to give her the chance to pull away. Seven stiffened beneath the touch for only a moment and then relaxed, even crooked her fingers up into Kathryn’s. Kathryn tried very hard not to move for fear of shaking her off. ‘I know I can’t change that about you. Maybe I wouldn’t even want to, if I could. But you must know, Seven, that I will not think any less of you if you make an error, as long as the effort to do your best remains.’

‘It will remain,’ Seven said, indignant.

Kathryn grinned. ‘Of course it will.’

‘Kathryn,’ Seven said, carefully. It was a newly-granted permission, one that had come in the wake of another late-night conversation following the days they were calling the Voyager Conspiracy; Kathryn was warmed through that Seven was daring to use it. ‘Would you provide these… reassurances to any member of the crew?’

‘Of course,’ Kathryn said again. 

‘Then you do not… provide me with “special treatment” because you see me as a daughter?’

The dare-she-think-it hope unfurled into something brighter and more insistent, and Kathryn murmured, ‘Oh, no, Seven.’ She swallowed; Seven was still watching her – gazing at her – and the artificial oxygen in the room seemed to thin out between them. This was such a very bad idea. She knew that and she was going to do it anyway. ‘I do provide you with special treatment, but not because I see you a daughter. It’s because I don’t.’

Their hands were still clasped, and now, cautiously, deliberately, Seven curled her thumb around Kathryn’s and pressed. As far as seduction efforts went, it was outstanding, subtle and breathtaking at once.

‘What I feel for you is… inappropriate,’ Seven murmured. Her voice was lower than usual, less controlled, and it coiled something hot into Kathryn’s belly. ‘I have tried to rationalise it, to forget it, and to transfer it onto another subject, but have remained unsuccessful.’ She swallowed visibly and then said, ‘I require you.’

‘You require me,’ Kathryn repeated. This was surreal – she was both astonished and entirely unsurprised by how quickly things had escalated. With Seven’s unique conversational style in the picture, it was always going to escalate quickly; Kathryn knew now that she’d only been waiting for Seven to give her the push. ‘In what sense?’

‘In every sense,’ Seven said. She blinked twice and then amended it to, ‘In whichever sense you would have me. Or would wish me. Lieutenant Torres has been educating me on the finer points of consent. As a Borg drone, I had little opportunity to practise it.’

‘I see,’ Kathryn said, not seeing at all. She’d be asking B’Elanna about that, later, for sure. 

‘I req… I desire to engage in an emotional, physical, and sexual relationship with you. If you are in agreement. If you are not, I… apologise for making you uncomfortable. I will not raise the topic again.’

Kathryn was glad she’d finished her coffee, because she’d surely have spit it all over her uniform. ‘I—’

‘If you require more time to reach a conclusion, I will leave you to consider in peace.’

‘Seven, I—’

‘I… hope not to have offended you in any way. I only wished to—’

‘Seven!’

She fell silent, squeezed Kathryn’s hand. It might have been involuntary, but Kathryn squeezed back anyway. 

‘The answer’s yes. I’m in agreement.’

For a long moment, Seven said nothing, and then she smiled.

*

By the time the rest of Kathryn’s uniform has joined her top on the floor, Seven is settled between her legs, spreading her thighs apart with cool hands, and making her intentions well known.

‘Seven,’ Kathryn murmurs, sliding a hand through Seven’s soft, loose hair, ‘you know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want, don’t you? There’s no timetable for how or when to… do things.’ She’s very proud of managing this speech without her voice breaking, especially when Seven has dipped her head to press a kiss to Kathryn’s hipbone. Even that feels incredible, a wickedly intimate touch to a sensitive place she’d almost forgotten, and blood rushes to her core at the sensation, the anticipation it brings. 

‘I am aware,’ Seven says. The kiss moves inward, to the soft skin below her navel. ‘I am acting willingly. I wish to… explore you. To taste you, in this manner. May I?’

Kathryn’s breath hitches, involuntary. ‘You may,’ she says.

The first touch of Seven’s tongue is cautious, unpractised, but Kathryn can sense the way she’s holding her body still, listening and watching and feeling for direction and encouragement, and hell if that isn’t one of the sexiest things she’s ever seen. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she murmurs, stroking Seven’s head. ‘Keep going, just like that.’

Seven does. She approaches this the way she approaches everything else, and it makes her a wonderfully attentive, responsive lover; she presses deeper when Kathryn arches into her; she pulls back when Kathryn twitches too hard or touches her shoulder. She delves deep and then deeper when it makes Kathryn groan, and she digs her fingers into Kathryn’s hipbones when she bucks up, gentle guidance and warning all at once.

When Kathryn comes, Seven presses her tongue flat against her and stays there, riding her through it. Kathryn’s fingers are tangled in Seven’s hair, a blond mess, and when Seven looks up, smug and pleased, her lips and chin glisten in the wan light. Kathryn drags her up to kiss her, shivers not-unpleasantly at the scratch of Seven’s suit against her bare skin.

Seven is tolerant of the cuddling; she says little, but she radiates satisfaction at a job well done as she folds Kathryn carefully into her arms and submits to being used as a body pillow. 

‘How do you feel?’ Kathryn asks, when she can breathe again. 

‘I am… happy,’ Seven says. ‘But I am also curious.’

Kathryn shifts to face her, brushes a matted chunk of hair out of her eyes. ‘About what?’

‘In my research, I encountered evidence that some humans do not enjoy the act of cunnilingus. I fail to understand why. I enjoyed it greatly, and you appeared to do so as well.’

‘I did,’ Kathryn says solemnly. ‘But all humans are different, and different acts are preferable to different people. But,’ she says, biting back a smirk, ‘it occurs to me that you can’t make an informed decision until you’ve experienced both sides of it, can you? Giving and receiving?’

Seven watches her, and the corner of her mouth hitches up. She runs a warm hand down Kathryn’s spine. ‘No, I cannot,’ she confirms. ‘Would you be interested in assisting me in gathering the missing data?’

Kathryn grins. ‘I would,’ she says, and she does.


End file.
